Disposable plastic lids are in common use as closures for drinking cups and most notably, coffee cups. A common feature of these type of lids is that they also include a tear-away or flip-open segment which permits one to sip a beverage through the torn away or flipped-open area created in the lid when it is otherwise in its closure position on a drinking cup.
A typical disposable cup cover or lid is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,459 issued May 13, 1980--DeParales et al and which includes a hinged flip-open segment that can be manually separated from the remainder of the lid to facilitate drinking of the beverage in the cup through the opening created in the lid while the lid remainder is still physically attached to the rim of the cup. The hinged segment in its separated condition can be held open in a fixed position by co-operating means provided in the lid itself, and should it be desired, the separated segment can also be flipped back to its original position to minimize beverage spillage if the cup is tilted or shaken.
A variation on lids of the foregoing description are lids which characteristically have interior of its lower section of that includes a downwardly facing annular channel for receiving and engaging the rim of a drinking cup, an upper or top wall section which is raised relative to the lower section. Lids which exhibit this raised feature are commonly known in the industry as "dome" lids.
One notable and desirable characteristic of dome disposable lids is their ability, when positioned as a closure on the rim of a drinking cup, to accommodate the foam or froth which may appear above the upper surface of the liquid contained within the cup, and which is typical of specialty coffees that have a foaming head.
Clements in Canadian Patent 1,229,576 issued Nov. 24, 1987 discloses a dome lid having a raised top wall that has a generally circular periphery and an annular sidewall which depends therefrom to a lower section of the lid which itself has a downwardly facing annular channel for engaging the circular rim of a drinking cup to which it is attached. Included in the top wall is a recessed portion for receiving the upper lip of a person drinking from the cup. In the peripheral portion of the top wall adjacent the recess, an opening or passageway is provided to enable one drinking from the cup to do so without removing the lid from the cup. While in the Clements patent it was acknowledged that flip-up segments in disposable lids were known, this desirable feature formed no part of his dome lid construction. Indeed, given the existence of the opening or passageway in the lid as disclosed by Clements, it was not capable of functioning as a complete closure for spillage purposes.
In accordance with the novel dome lid of my invention, I have been able to maintain the desirable features inherent in dome lid designs, while enabling it to function as a complete closure lid and optionally, as a drink through lid employing a recloseable flip-open lid segment for this purpose.